Three new marine reserves, covering 435,000 hectares of ocean, have been set up in the subantarctic today.

Conservation Minister Nick Smith said the reserves would be formally established in sea surrounding the Antipodes, Bounty and Campbell Islands from Perseverance Harbour, Campbell Island.

“The New Zealand Subantarctic Islands are one of the most pristine places on earth and these marine reserves are about keeping them that way,” he said.

“The marine reserve status that takes effect today means there can be no fishing, no mining, no petroleum exploration and no marine farming in these waters.”

The reserves will ensure the protection of an “incredible diversity of wildlife”, he said.

Excellent news.

These new marine reserves mean New Zealand now has “complete ecosystem protection” covering the land and the sea of its Subantarctic Islands, Dr Smith said, and brings New Zealand’s total number of marine reserves to 37.

“The area coming under protection is thirteen times larger than the total area of all the reserves on New Zealand’s three main islands. It will expand the proportion of our territorial sea that is protected to 9.5 per cent, close to the target of 10 per cent recommended by the United Nations.”

Just as we lock some land up as conservation land, it is sensible to protect some marine areas also as reserves.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2014 at 10:00 am and is filed under NZ Politics.
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I don’t want to be cynical…but I think BlairM has nailed this one… sure marine reserves around our coast are a good thing in multiple ways (including improving the fishing right next door; the fish dont recognise the boundary!) but way down there? I didn’t think I would ever agree with anything Gareth Hughes aged 17 said…but it does sound rather gimmicky to me…an easy way of getting us near some other bullshit UN “target”??

A miserable prison on the other hand…You wouldn’t need it to be anything elaborate..you’d almost want to encourage the bastards to escape!! No need to go looking for them..